Literally AND metaphorically. This past week has been the usual blend of alchemical-wonderful, but there’s also been a lot of reading going on.
I review for both LJ and the SRRT newsletter, which is an interesting exercise in contrasts. LJ’s short, severe 175-word limit forces me to be specific, whereas with SRRT’s 500-word relative ramble, I can be a bit more poetic about a book. For LJ I review fiction, which guarantees my degrees in English and the time spent learning how to read a text critically will never go to waste; it also really forces me to think about library budgets, appeal factors, etc. and make sure my review gets packed with the sort of helpful details a selector in a hurry might need. For SRRT the focus is on non-fiction works that somehow address social concerns. This somewhat selfishly allows me to praise wonderful books I am already reading anyway, and that might not get many reviews in the professional or popular press.
Due to an overcrowded plate, I actually just turned down a review opportunity from SRRT, which disappoints me beyond belief, because I was going to review Sarah Miles’s Take This Bread, a memoir in which a lifelong atheist with a background in political and social justice work experiences a radical conversion based on the principles of actually feeding the hungry, as opposed to just talking about it (or, heavens forbid, forming yet another committee or study group about it). If you have ever said the words “liberation theology” out loud; live or work in a community where hunger is a critical issue; belong to a faith community that would like to be more active in feeding the poor; or wonder how on earth anyone managed to reconcile faith and action in a hands-on practical way, you should read this book.
I’m still slowly making my way through that package of galleys from Rory Litwin, which is fitting given that the first book I’ll review here is all about why reading slowly is a darned good idea. You might be asking yourself, though, why we’re bothering with book reviews anyway, since newspapers are dying and nobody reads anymore, and besides, won’t Google scan it? The answers to those questions will also appear in the review. For a sneak peek at topic to come, click here.
ETA: I nearly forgot to mention that I’ve also contributed a review to Litterbox Magazine, a new local online literary journal that will go live tomorrow (I’m telling you today so you don’t think I’m joking. 
) The book I reviewed, Literature and War, is another example of the kind of book that doesn’t get nearly enough ink, and the kind of assignment that lets a librarian fulfill his/her ethical obligations while discharging her/his professional ones.
